When I was in my early twenties I use to think about what it would be like to be sixty. I would look at my parents who were in their late 40s at the time, and deem them old, especially with respect to my mother’s conservative ideas regarding marriage, and my father’s conservative political viewpoints. My grandparents, whom I never really knew, were already in their 70s, and consequently “really old” and completely over the hill, at least in my mind. In retrospect, the funniest, but most concerning thoughts I had was wondering when I would transform into “really old,” what I would look like, and how I would look back on my life. I assumed that the transformation would bring with it a great deal of wisdom, experience, insight and most of all, graceful maturity. I, like many of my peers, truly expected that I would see life differently than I did when I was in my twenties. All would be right with the world. I would be regarded as relevant, successful, well to do, and most of all, happy and content with how the preceding sixty years had evolved.
So now I am sixty and thus far, I have not felt any dramatic change in how I perceive my wisdom, my insight, or my level of maturity. Of course, my appearance has evolved over the last forty years, but whose hasn’t! (Well, I can think of a few super stars, but like Cee Lo Green sings, forget them!) Anyway, even with all of the advanced surgical procedures available to supplement the fountain of youth, the body and the face change. But, appearance is not the issue here (at least for now). Rather it’s the assumption that all of those years would bring about a completely different person … a mature, wise adult with a plethora of knowledge and experience that could be handed down to the next generation. It's just a personal perception, but I still don't feel like that adult.
On the inside I feel like the same person that I was in the first two-thirds of my life. While the relevance of my professional status may have diminished, I still like many of the same things I liked as a twenties something…top 40 music, symphony and opera, theater, art and history, sports, health and fitness, travel, and reading about all of above. I'm a true romantic and I imagine myself as libidinous as ever. Of somewhat less importance in my life today are politics and religion. My faith in God has wavered to some degree, (thank you very much Stephen Hawking and your Grand Design). And, when I walk into a conversation involving politics I turn my head and bolt in the opposite direction, unlike my youth when I was a devout, card-carrying Republican – no matter what. I mean, what’s the point since no one can get it right anyway? (I’ve switched parties over the years--- I couldn't get it right either). This leaves me with a really questionable legacy. What impressionable thoughts and ideas am I able to pass down to my son? Do I even want to establish a more meaningful legacy? Is it too late to make some kind of a difference, at least with my friends and family?
What does any of this have to do with the last third of my life? In my mind it’s rather simple. It seems to be a great time to approach the last third in a more purposeful manner. Rather than assuming that being in my sixties makes me “over the hill,” I think it’s time to stomp out any fears I have of learning new things, taking risks, and making personal decisions that might make the people I love uncomfortable. My son recently suggested that I was losing my “relevance” because I no longer chose to work at my career, especially one that I had really loved. He seemed to believe that if I was no longer economically productive, I would be regarded in a different light, especially by my professional colleagues. I guess what he never understood was that my career kept me away from home…I was a road warrior. Instead of being a loving wife and mom, I was passionately married to my job. I was closer to my clients than my friends and family. By the time I was in my 40s and 50s I realized I wanted nothing more than to be a great mom --- time was running out, and I knew my son would be leaving home for college and a career of his own. While I never completely stopped working, I ultimately gave up the road for the high school PTA. That was one of the hardest transitions of my life. Now at sixty, I envision more significant changes in my future, mostly those of a more personal nature, and far more self-centered and egocentric.
I'm currently focused on taking greater control of the direction and emotion of the rest of my life. Twenty plus years of “bliss,” connected to a person or persons who inspire me to challenge myself, to continue to learn, and to reconnect with the things I’ve always loved to do throughout my more “youthful” years, is essential to my “ last third.” I truly believe that what I’ve done to date has set the bar for what’s to come. I do not intend to hike “over the hill,” unless it includes high sloping fairways on the golf course, or long, winding trails in one of the national parks. To this end, I’m hoping to develop a plan for growing my mind, body and spirit. I'm working on giving more to my community, and to the causes and interests about which I care the most deeply. Of even greater importance, I hope to uncover new opportunities and attack them full force in the same manner and with the same amount of energy that I used to attack my business career.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Coming of Age
What better way of thinking about one’s coming of age is there than looking at the films that made this “life passage” fun and fashionable. Well over 200 films can be categorized as such. I must admit that I am a huge movie fan. Oddly, I believe that this personality trait is somewhat genetic. My grandfather on my mother’s side (a gentleman I never met due to his death when my mother was only 13 years old), owned two movie theaters in Santa Monica, California. My mother never missed a movie or a premier when it was held at one of his theaters. Her massive collection of autograph books dating back to the stars of silent film is impressive and nostalgic. But, with respect to my generation, there are four or five movies that not only stand out in my mind, but exemplify my own coming of age experiences.
Sixteen Candles was the 1984 John Hughes coming of age film starring Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling, and Anthony Michael Hall. The plot was rather sweet and simple. It involved an awkward high school student, "Sam" Baker, who struggled to get through the day of her 16th birthday, which her entire family forgot because of her older sister’s pending wedding which was planned for the following day. Sam was also obsessed in a harmless sort of way with the ever so popular and attractive senior, Jake Ryan. The usual and expected ensued, accurately capturing the real experiences, feelings and emotions of most 16 year old high school girls. What caught my particular attention in this film was the running subplot which involved a geeky freshman, Ted, who continually, but unsuccessfully tried to bed his love interest, Sam, to satisfy a bet with his friends. I remember being pursued by one of my older brother’s best friends for at least two years of my high school career (albeit not on the basis of a bet). He too was never successful in the pursuit, but in retrospect, I still wonder why. He was cute, smart, funny and from a very wealthy family, (and not necessarily in that order). Nonetheless, if Cronenburg, when discussing psychoanalytic theory was correct in stating “The power of cinema comes in its power to duplicate the real world,” then by God, he found me in a picturesque classroom on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. I wish I would have been as lucky as Molly Ringwald in landing the role of Samantha Baker.
In 1987 Hughes wrote another successful teen drama, Some Kind of Wonderful , a romance film starring Eric Stoltz, Lea Thompson, and Mary Stuart Masterson. The film was considered a cult classic of the “Brat Pack” era, due to its strong themes that were seen in previous Hughes stories. The film is set against the strict social hierarchy of an American public high school – not at all unlike the ones that I attended in the 60’s. I took away a feeling from this film that true love, real emotional love where two individuals share many of the same interests, background characteristics, and dreams, always prevails. I still believe that today. And, much like my wise doctor (who shall remain nameless) recently tried to convey to me, I don’t “need” a soul mate, but it certainly is wonderful to finally discover that you definitely “want” that person.
American Graffiti was a 1973 comedy / drama film co-written/directed by George Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul LeMat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips and Harrison Ford. Set in Modesto, California in 1962, this film was a study of the wonderful 60’s cultures that many of us baby boomers had the privilege of being a part, including hot cars, Saturday night cruising, “make out” sessions, and totally cool rock n’ roll. Told as a series of vignettes and a major one-night blast, the film is a terrific portrait of teenage life in the early 1960s. Ah yes, the good old days. The cooler the car, the more I just had to be with the guy. I lived for music of the 60’s, and tried to memorize the words of every love song that touched my heart. Having watched this film more times than I can remember, I often wondered who was spying on me in real life – of course, with many embellishments!
Let’s not forget the 1999 trilogy spawned by American Pie, a comedy film which ultimately produced two sequels: American Pie 2 (2001) and American Wedding (2003), featuring the courtship and marriage of the original characters. The original film concentrated on four boys who made a pact to lose their virginity before high school graduation. The film's title refers to one of the funniest scenes in film history. One of the lead characters is caught masturbating with a pie after being told that third base felt like "warm apple pie". Wow…. I’m not so sure I ever really understood the significance of that metaphor when I was in high school. I pride myself on staying a virgin during those years. But, ultimately I did get the point! I had grown up very fond of my grandmother’s apple pie over the years, especially when served a la mode. By the time I was a junior in college I totally got it from a female perspective. I wonder if, for me, the film would have made more sense faster if the focus of the character’s affection had been a dark chocolate devil’s food cake.
What high school girl could not relate to “Jenna” in 13 Going On 30. This was a 2004 American romantic comedy starring Jennifer Garner. The film concerned a 13-year-old girl (Jenna) skipping 17 years of her life, and waking up as a successful magazine editor in the future. She wished to be 30 in hopes that it would help her overcome her unpopularity at school. In addition, she desperately wanted to join the “Six Chicks,” a school clique. When the transformation actually happened, Jenna especially loved her brand new breasts (which did not necessitate plastic surgery). She was smart, attractive and successful, but not altogether happy. I spent most of my years in high school wanting to get it behind me. (My breasts were not that bad, so that was not a real concern for me). It wouldn’t be honest to say that I was unpopular, but I never hung with the cheerleaders. I dreamed of having a successful career in business and traveling the country with a high profile. My college experience was not altogether different. However, at Purdue University in the late 60’s and early 70’s, men were plentiful and I found an adorable boyfriend with little trouble. By my junior year I finally realized that I preferred doing engineers over studying engineering, so I changed my major to the study of nutritional sciences. This major seemed to take less time away from my new social life. After graduation it took 11 long years of hard work at large companies before finally settling into the career I had always wanted… traveling around the country with a big ego and a profile people recognized.
There you have it! Enough about film, and its influence on and relationship to my coming of age. I guess you could say I was a fairly normal teenager …the usual drama, with the standard highlights and typical low points. College, both undergraduate and graduate experiences, prepared me for a stable and lucrative career, and my regrets in the first third of my life are few. Boring??? Probably. But, I could be leaving out some of the more provocative details!
Sixteen Candles was the 1984 John Hughes coming of age film starring Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling, and Anthony Michael Hall. The plot was rather sweet and simple. It involved an awkward high school student, "Sam" Baker, who struggled to get through the day of her 16th birthday, which her entire family forgot because of her older sister’s pending wedding which was planned for the following day. Sam was also obsessed in a harmless sort of way with the ever so popular and attractive senior, Jake Ryan. The usual and expected ensued, accurately capturing the real experiences, feelings and emotions of most 16 year old high school girls. What caught my particular attention in this film was the running subplot which involved a geeky freshman, Ted, who continually, but unsuccessfully tried to bed his love interest, Sam, to satisfy a bet with his friends. I remember being pursued by one of my older brother’s best friends for at least two years of my high school career (albeit not on the basis of a bet). He too was never successful in the pursuit, but in retrospect, I still wonder why. He was cute, smart, funny and from a very wealthy family, (and not necessarily in that order). Nonetheless, if Cronenburg, when discussing psychoanalytic theory was correct in stating “The power of cinema comes in its power to duplicate the real world,” then by God, he found me in a picturesque classroom on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. I wish I would have been as lucky as Molly Ringwald in landing the role of Samantha Baker.
In 1987 Hughes wrote another successful teen drama, Some Kind of Wonderful , a romance film starring Eric Stoltz, Lea Thompson, and Mary Stuart Masterson. The film was considered a cult classic of the “Brat Pack” era, due to its strong themes that were seen in previous Hughes stories. The film is set against the strict social hierarchy of an American public high school – not at all unlike the ones that I attended in the 60’s. I took away a feeling from this film that true love, real emotional love where two individuals share many of the same interests, background characteristics, and dreams, always prevails. I still believe that today. And, much like my wise doctor (who shall remain nameless) recently tried to convey to me, I don’t “need” a soul mate, but it certainly is wonderful to finally discover that you definitely “want” that person.
American Graffiti was a 1973 comedy / drama film co-written/directed by George Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul LeMat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips and Harrison Ford. Set in Modesto, California in 1962, this film was a study of the wonderful 60’s cultures that many of us baby boomers had the privilege of being a part, including hot cars, Saturday night cruising, “make out” sessions, and totally cool rock n’ roll. Told as a series of vignettes and a major one-night blast, the film is a terrific portrait of teenage life in the early 1960s. Ah yes, the good old days. The cooler the car, the more I just had to be with the guy. I lived for music of the 60’s, and tried to memorize the words of every love song that touched my heart. Having watched this film more times than I can remember, I often wondered who was spying on me in real life – of course, with many embellishments!
Let’s not forget the 1999 trilogy spawned by American Pie, a comedy film which ultimately produced two sequels: American Pie 2 (2001) and American Wedding (2003), featuring the courtship and marriage of the original characters. The original film concentrated on four boys who made a pact to lose their virginity before high school graduation. The film's title refers to one of the funniest scenes in film history. One of the lead characters is caught masturbating with a pie after being told that third base felt like "warm apple pie". Wow…. I’m not so sure I ever really understood the significance of that metaphor when I was in high school. I pride myself on staying a virgin during those years. But, ultimately I did get the point! I had grown up very fond of my grandmother’s apple pie over the years, especially when served a la mode. By the time I was a junior in college I totally got it from a female perspective. I wonder if, for me, the film would have made more sense faster if the focus of the character’s affection had been a dark chocolate devil’s food cake.
What high school girl could not relate to “Jenna” in 13 Going On 30. This was a 2004 American romantic comedy starring Jennifer Garner. The film concerned a 13-year-old girl (Jenna) skipping 17 years of her life, and waking up as a successful magazine editor in the future. She wished to be 30 in hopes that it would help her overcome her unpopularity at school. In addition, she desperately wanted to join the “Six Chicks,” a school clique. When the transformation actually happened, Jenna especially loved her brand new breasts (which did not necessitate plastic surgery). She was smart, attractive and successful, but not altogether happy. I spent most of my years in high school wanting to get it behind me. (My breasts were not that bad, so that was not a real concern for me). It wouldn’t be honest to say that I was unpopular, but I never hung with the cheerleaders. I dreamed of having a successful career in business and traveling the country with a high profile. My college experience was not altogether different. However, at Purdue University in the late 60’s and early 70’s, men were plentiful and I found an adorable boyfriend with little trouble. By my junior year I finally realized that I preferred doing engineers over studying engineering, so I changed my major to the study of nutritional sciences. This major seemed to take less time away from my new social life. After graduation it took 11 long years of hard work at large companies before finally settling into the career I had always wanted… traveling around the country with a big ego and a profile people recognized.
There you have it! Enough about film, and its influence on and relationship to my coming of age. I guess you could say I was a fairly normal teenager …the usual drama, with the standard highlights and typical low points. College, both undergraduate and graduate experiences, prepared me for a stable and lucrative career, and my regrets in the first third of my life are few. Boring??? Probably. But, I could be leaving out some of the more provocative details!
Monday, June 6, 2011
Is Life Really Divided Into Thirds?
Lately, I’ve been giving some thought to my life expectancy. The dictionary defines life expectancy as the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. Essentially we look at life expectancy as the average number of subsequent or remaining years of life for someone at a particular age, according to a particular mortality experience. I checked some statistics in Wikipedia. Humans (males and females combined) live on average 31.88 years in Swaziland, and 82.6 years in Japan. The oldest confirmed recorded age for any human was Jeanne Calment from Arles, France, who lived 122 years. One could certainly question the quality of life of an individual who was 122 years of age, (or for that matter, the quality of life of any centenarian), but that is a different blog). Oddly, I have read reports that state there have been as many as 80,000 centenarians living in the United States at any given time, and if this number continues to increase then all of my averages and calculations become rather meaningless!
The National Center for Health Statistics reported in 2007, the average life expectancy at birth for persons born in the United States was 77.9 years, an increase of 1.1 years from 2000 and an increase of 0.2 years from 2006. American males born in 2000 now enjoy an average life expectancy of 74.1 years, up 0.2 years from 1999. Females have an average life expectancy of 79.5 years. Women can still expect to live longer than men on average, though the gap in life expectancy has narrowed. A 7-year difference between the sexes recorded in 1990 was down to 5.5 years last year. Hurray!!!!! It seems so sad that most men can expect a shorter lifespan than women – especially for us women. As much as I love my girlfriends, I still love the company of a man. And while a very wise doctor once pointed out to me that I don’t “need” a man, I especially like the thought of “wanting” one in my life – all of my life, to the absolute finish line. So, in order to make that happen I will either have to die at an age under my average life expectancy, or fall in love with a younger man, one who is at least 6 years my junior. What a strange dilemma.
At any rate, all of these numbers pouring out of my brain bring me to my original question: "Is life really divided into thirds?" The answer is personal and simple -- only in my own mind, when I'm feeling analytical about my life history. If the average life expectancy of a female living in the United States is close to 80, then each third of a woman's life would calculate out to 26.6 years. I don't remember any life changing events that occurred when I was 26 1/2 or 53, but the years leading up to those life pedestals revealed significant evolution. I've changed in so many ways I often find it difficult to describe myself when asked. For that, I am grateful, proud and a stronger human being. To this end, I'm fairly certain that I've fully embarked on the third and final stage of my life. I hope it is as interesting, exciting, and as adventurous as the first two thirds. In future blogs, I will attempt to reveal how the thirds of my life have impacted the person I am today.
The National Center for Health Statistics reported in 2007, the average life expectancy at birth for persons born in the United States was 77.9 years, an increase of 1.1 years from 2000 and an increase of 0.2 years from 2006. American males born in 2000 now enjoy an average life expectancy of 74.1 years, up 0.2 years from 1999. Females have an average life expectancy of 79.5 years. Women can still expect to live longer than men on average, though the gap in life expectancy has narrowed. A 7-year difference between the sexes recorded in 1990 was down to 5.5 years last year. Hurray!!!!! It seems so sad that most men can expect a shorter lifespan than women – especially for us women. As much as I love my girlfriends, I still love the company of a man. And while a very wise doctor once pointed out to me that I don’t “need” a man, I especially like the thought of “wanting” one in my life – all of my life, to the absolute finish line. So, in order to make that happen I will either have to die at an age under my average life expectancy, or fall in love with a younger man, one who is at least 6 years my junior. What a strange dilemma.
At any rate, all of these numbers pouring out of my brain bring me to my original question: "Is life really divided into thirds?" The answer is personal and simple -- only in my own mind, when I'm feeling analytical about my life history. If the average life expectancy of a female living in the United States is close to 80, then each third of a woman's life would calculate out to 26.6 years. I don't remember any life changing events that occurred when I was 26 1/2 or 53, but the years leading up to those life pedestals revealed significant evolution. I've changed in so many ways I often find it difficult to describe myself when asked. For that, I am grateful, proud and a stronger human being. To this end, I'm fairly certain that I've fully embarked on the third and final stage of my life. I hope it is as interesting, exciting, and as adventurous as the first two thirds. In future blogs, I will attempt to reveal how the thirds of my life have impacted the person I am today.
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